


A Two Handed Sword

by noseforahtwo



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 23:16:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7594249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noseforahtwo/pseuds/noseforahtwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Followers Giveaway prize for @lyzenzed. The King of Ferelden meets Warden Blackwall in Redcliffe after the events of 'In Hushed Whispers'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Two Handed Sword

“ _That’s_ Blackwall?!” Alistair brushed crumbs from the front of his doublet and leaned farther out into the hallway but the door was closing behind the Divine’s Right Hand. “Don’t let them leave!”

Anora rolled her eyes then swished her way past him to the sideboard where someone in the royal household had been nice enough to lay out a ploughman’s lunch. He could tell she was disgusted with him, she always did that float-walk of hers when she thought he was being common.

“I mean, ask them to come back. Nicely, not like ‘I’m gonna chop your head off’.” He said to Teagan’s men clustered at the entry. “Maker’s Breath I can’t believe that’s him.”

“Is this someone I should know?” Anora was still frowning at him - he guessed needing a snack and also wanting to speak to the first Warden he had seen in bleeding years was somehow Letting the Side Down. She flicked away a gnat and wrinkled her nose at the fruit bowl.

“He’s one of us. But he must be - Maker, he’s got to be the oldest Warden still walking around.” Alistair downed the last of his ale and belched into his hand. “Pardon. I can’t believe he’s with those nutters from Haven. Nothing good-”

“Yes, dearest. Nothing good comes out of Haven.” She sighed. “I think we should have that etched into a crest. You say it at every mention of the Frostbacks.”

“Well, it’s true. Now the whole damned mountain has burst and gone green. You can’t tell me they weren’t doing something dodgy up there.” He shook his head, watching their men dragging sacks of Maker-knows-what out of Teagan’s courtyard. “Dodgier than last time, even.”

“I want to talk to him. You know, official business.” He tried a charming smile but she wasn’t having it.

“You are _not_ to compare notes with him. There is no point in becoming anxious over nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, Anora.”

“It’s _nothing_. Now that we are off the road you’ll feel better.” Anora narrowed her eyes. Like she could make it true by staring hard enough. Old Loghain sat behind her eyes at times like this. “As soon as I have assured myself the last of that Magister’s mess is swept out, you’ll have a proper rest before we go home.”

“Do you think I need shoes to match the bags under my eyes?” He shrugged at her pursed lips. “Come on, that was funny. I’ve been saving that one.”

She leaned in closer to put a hand on the side of his neck, her thumb petting his cheek. He swallowed the last of a bite of cheese, almost choking in surprise.

“You are not going mad on me, Alistair Therin. I won’t allow it. We have too much to do for you to start howling at the moon now.” The creaky doors into the butler’s pantry opened again so she stood up straight and put a respectable distance between them before they were seen.

“Your Majesty, the Seeker and her party have returned to the East drawing room.” It was only Clem, and he had seen his King and Queen at each other’s throats often enough over the years. Then again, to see them playing at being sweet might be more shocking.

“Great! Um, Keep them happy, feed them or something and ask the Warden Constable to come to the armory. No, wait, I’ll walk him down, nevermind, thanks Clem.”

“Do not seat that Free Marcher woman on the chaise,” Anora snapped at poor Clem, who still hadn’t done anything but what he’d been asked. “She was covered in muck, so is the Tevinter.”

Alistair wiped his damp palms on the closest curtain. It earned him another tongue click from Queenie. She float-walked past him looking like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth with Clem trailing behind.

* * *

“People in the Hinterlands know if there’s something with a griffon carved on it, try and fob it off at the castle.” He could feel himself grinning as Blackwall came closer to the big table in the center of Teagan’s armory. “Teagan - the Arl, of course - er…my uncle as well - he bought it from a Rivaini merchant last year and I didn’t even look at it, just assumed it was another knock-off. I couldn’t _believe_ it was really yours!”

Blackwall stared at the hilt of the claymore like it was going to bite him.

“Are you all right, Ser?” Alistair replaced the sword gently on the worktable, pushing his own gear to one side. “You look like- sorry, was I screeching?” A nervous laugh caught him. “I feel like I’m screeching.”

Alistair touched the stained and worn hilt. His uncle’s Quartermaster had kept in good shape. He remembered suddenly that Teagan had said it arrived with gore dried around the pommel, the scabbard cracked from neglect.

“When did you say you found it?” Blackwall finally took the blade in both hands. The silverite rang a pretty note as he pulled it from the scabbard. He frowned down at the inscription on the guard, turning toward the arrow slit for more sunlight to read the initials carved in filigree script.

“Last year, just after the pass was thawed enough for caravans again. But Teagan says the Rivaini told him a yarn about how he’d been sitting on it for a long while, planning to ‘do the right thing’ the next time he ran into one of us.”

Blackwall kept his back to him, turning the sword over in his hands.

“Yes,” he said around a frog in his throat. “This is it.” As an afterthought, he added a hasty 'Your Majesty'. “It got left behind.” Blackwall pulled a glove off with his teeth, dropping it to wipe at the fuller while he spoke. “With someone that…I left it. I left it with a man I thought would make good use of it. But it looks like it was foolish to have any faith in him.” He stepped back from the shaft of light and unsheathed it fully, thumbing a nick near the point. “Lousy cur went and sold it, looks like.”

_Left behind._ That wasn’t the answer he had expected. Blackwall’s glassy eyes never left the blade as he hefted it, spinning it in his grip as if the hilt didn’t feel quite right in his palm. _Left behind_. The sword had been in bad shape but the man himself was fighting fit, if very twitchy. No limp, didn’t favor an arm handling his weapon and barely going grey in the beard.

Sudden memories arose of Amell wiping a hand down Sten’s arm one morning in Denerim, pulling away burnt skin and leaving behind nothing but an eerie blue glow over shiny, tight-looking pink scars. Magical healing did wonders if you had access to it. Broken bones knitted up in days not weeks. He had once watched a bad cut on his own thigh - the kind of thing that went rotten if you weren’t careful - seal itself under his friend’s hands in the time it took Alistair to eat a pork pastie. A mage was a handy person to have around. Maybe worth keeping alive and away from Templars despite the risks? Worth ditching the Order?

“Well,” Alistair cleared his throat. “It might have been the last thing between him and going hungry. Do you mind if I ask who you left it with?”

“Some brawler.” Blackwall sneered. “Down in Val Chevin. Nobody.”

Well, that didn’t sound likely and it didn’t look likely. Blackwall’s hands shook as he gave his blade a truncated swing. “I see you’ve gone shield now. What made you switch up?”

“Can’t be swinging all day. Needed the block.” The Warden Constable never quite met his eyes, looking instead at Alistair’s chin or the torch over his shoulder.

_Needed the block._ Recruiters went out alone, and Duncan had said more than once that recruiters were pulled from Weisshaupt or Adamant. Good wardens but also senior men and women who needed to not be so close to the Warden Commander, who needed to be _out there_ somewhere and not underfoot. Duncan had said it with a laugh, but never explained. But it sounded like it was a lonely life unless a person went out of their way to make it less so.

“I haven’t seen another one of us in the flesh in almost two years.” Alistair found an oiled rag on the rack and started on his greaves, leaving the rest of his armor where his squires had removed it. “No letters, even. Weisshaupt is a lot like the children, past a certain age I only see them when they want money.”

Nothing, not a twitch or a flinch at the mention of sprogs. Either there was no family stashed away some place or the Warden Commander was a very good liar. Alistair rubbed a spot off his armor with a little more vigor than it needed. There was a lot he didn’t care for about being made a king. People lying to his face stays near the top of the list.

Alistair looked up from his work with his Displeased Monarch Frown at the ready. Blackwall was picking at the nick in his sword again, standing flat footed, shoulders slumped. The jitters had all gone and now he seemed wrung out, bone tired.

“Teagan’s got a good smith, he doesn’t get to handle unalloyed silverite much.” Alistair said quietly. “I know we gave your companions the bum’s rush this afternoon but there’s still time to have that mended.”

“No need,” Blackwall’s eyes tracked up and down the blade, his thumbnail digging at the marred edge.

“I can’t send you off with a dink in your sword, Ser. It was probably one of the squires playing silly buggers down here.”

Blackwall’s eyebrows crowded over his nose and he sheathed the sword with a quick jab. Resting the tip on the toe of his boot, he frowned at Alistair. “Hurlock.”

Despite himself, Alistair nodded and waited for more. There had to be more, nobody looked that devastated over bonking their sword on a darkspawn’s rusty armor. Blackwall obliged him, putting the sword gently on the table. He ran a hand through his shaggy hair, feeling at his temple like he was checking for ticks. In a moment he had leaned over so Alistair could see a streak of white under the black.

“There’s the bit that’s missing.”

“Still in there?”

Blackwall nodded, letting his hair fall back. “I’ll keep it, and the nick can stay.”

It didn’t do to argue about a thing like that. Whoever had been left with the Constable’s weapon years ago had earned his regard and Blackwall had clearly chosen his own memento. Alistair cleared his throat. In the sudden quiet the gibbering noise in the back of his mind was hard to ignore. “Have you felt anything lately?”

“It’s tried to work itself out once or twice if I take a blow to the helm, in the bone though I think. Smarts but that’s all.”

“No, not that.” He looked up, hoping to see some reassurance or even the same shadows stirring in the Warden Constable’s eyes. The constant anxious prickle couldn’t be solely for him. “I’m only asking because I have. Not, um, not like before at Ostagar and not like the last time. It doesn’t feel like darkspawn, it’s not that tight grab at the back of the neck but it’s something.” Alistair put his greaves aside. “It’s all the time now. I wasn’t going to say anything…I feel like maybe I’ve done something wrong, or there’s something I’m supposed to do about it.”

Blackwall said nothing, only nodded.

“Queenie is insistent I’m not going down the Deep Roads anytime soon.” Alistair shook off the crawling feeling just saying the words gave him. “I’ve got to decide for myself what the pledge to protect others means.”

The older man went a little red around the ears but kept quiet and put his gloves back on, pulling at them to straighten the seams.

“Have you been sleeping? Sorry, it’s just that you don’t _look_ like you’ve been sleeping a lot and I hope I’m not being soft. This whole King business has not been so good for my will lately.”

“No, but, er…things are different for all of us.” Blackwall shrugged. “I couldn’t say what you should expect, Your Majesty.”

“Oh, Alistair, please. I can’t have you getting all ‘bowing and genuflecting’ on me. You’re practically a legend. To me, anyway, Duncan told me stories about you.”

Blackwall went stiff with surprise and leaned back a few degrees.

“Nothing untoward! You’re well, a lot of the recruits looked up to you, but, honestly they’re probably all…um…all dead now.” Alistair looked down at his hands in embarrassment, glad Anora couldn’t witness him with his foot so far in his mouth. “Damn. I hadn’t meant to bring that up.”

Blackwall shrugged and looked at Duncan’s shield laying on the table between them.

“The man who brought me into the Wardens told me about you. I said that already. Duncan. He was - he sounded found of you. Were you close?” Alistair shut his mouth with a click of teeth. He wanted stories, old jokes, that time Duncan fell off a horse. Anything, really.

Blackwall didn’t answer for so long it became awkward. More awkward. He ran a hand over Duncan’s shield, tracing the dents and scrapes. It couldn’t have escaped his notice that the King of Fereldan was still carrying it all these years later.

“I don’t actually take it out much any more.” Alistair picked up the shield and offered it for a better look. “We haven’t had anything worth fighting over in a few years now.”

“Good.” Blackwall said softly. “Let the people keep their sons.”

His eyes stung at the compliment. “Duncan would have said the same, I think.”

“Ah, yes.” Blackwall gave him a quick smile that was mostly hidden by mustache and beard then handed his shield back. “Duncan. Good man. He trained you, did he?”

“He recruited me,” Alistair leaned against the shelf behind him, dizzy with pride and the happiness of getting to say Duncan’s name again. “I wanted out of the Templars…well, not exactly but it wasn’t what I thought it would be. I don’t know, I was young and it’s not as if I had much choice.”

Outside someone was barking orders in a thick Northern accent. They both looked to the closest arrow slit.

“Duncan, he always made me think I could do it. All of it.” Alistair waved a hand at the castle above them, at Ferelden out there somewhere. “He was so sure of himself and I hoped it rubbed off on me. As if he was over my shoulder so I probably wasn’t making too big a mess of things.”

“It makes a difference, knowing someone has faith in you,” Blackwall said.

“Knowing what you are meant to do." Alistair nodded. "It feels like getting orders but _not_ , not the kind of orders you get your back up about. Does that even make sense?”

“It does.” Blackwall turned at the sound of boots in the hall.

“That’s probably the Quartermaster looking to get back into his shop,” Alistair sighed. “Nobody will interrupt the King but they’ll be sure to make enough noise to announce themselves while they wait.”

Alistair tried to offer Blackwall his old weapon in a properly grand manner, something that befitted the moments prior. As usual he flubbed it somehow because he was left with a handful of claymore and Blackwall shaking his head.

“It doesn’t belong with me any more, Your Majesty.”

“Don’t be silly!” Alistair came around the table and took hold of the older man’s arm. “Look, it doesn’t matter why you gave it up. You had a good reason and it’s yours, the reasons and the sword. You know what they’ll do with it back at Weisshaupt, anyway.”

“Of course.” Blackwall sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I’d thought to…” he trailed off. He took the scabbard in hand and swallowed, his lips gone bloodless.

“The cache.” Alistair snatched it back. Anything to stop him looking that way. Too much like Duncan squatting at the edge of the clearing where they had burnt what was left of poor Daveth - swallowing around the lump in his throat and quietly asking pardon of the Maker for his failure. “I’ve been meaning to put in a good one here in the village.”

“Of course.” He said again, stepping back out of reach. Poor man looked like he could use a drink. “The, er, _our_ cache. Fine idea.”

“I’ll have Teagan send word to you in Haven when it’s done. If we ever see a runner again Clarel will have it added to the maps.”

The shuffling feet and cleared throats on the other side of the heavy door to the armory had gotten louder. Alistair squeezed the older man’s shoulder again and let himself grin. “I’m honored to have met you, Warden Constable.”

Blackwall’s shadowed eyes met his for a moment before he accepted that with a nod. “Your Majesty.”

Alistair waved a hand and straightened his doublet. “Now let’s put on our Serious Warden Business faces.” He turned back with a hand on the latch, “I see you’ve got yours. Time to go forth and look capable, hmm?”

 

 

 


End file.
